Dementors

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” 

Growing up with the Harry Potter series, this is one quote by Dumbledore that always stood out to me for some reason. Sounds cliché? Maybe.

Dumbledore used this quote in the third book, when Dementors were stationed outside the grounds of Hogwarts in search of an escaped convict in the wizarding world. For those of you who don’t follow the Harry Potter series, Dementors are amongst the foulest dark creatures in the wizarding world. They feed on human happiness. The presence of Dementors can make one feel as though he’d never be happy again. Get too near to a dementor, and you’d have every happy memory sucked out of your soul.

It’s interesting that the charm which wizards use to defend themselves against Dementors, known as the Patronus charm, requires them to concentrate on a single, but powerful, happy thought. The thought needs to be strong enough in order to shield the wizard from the effects of the dementors. A simple memory of a wizard’s first time riding on a broomstick will not suffice. I find it quite thought-provoking that the only way for a wizard to defend himself in the presence of a dementor, is to be absolutely focused on the very thing that the dementor seeks to suck out of his soul. Happiness, Joy, Love. These are the very things that Dementors aim to rid the world of, but it is by focusing on these things that people in the wizarding world protect themselves from these dark creatures.

I suppose in our lives too, Dementors come in from time to time and aim to rid us of the things that are supposed to bring us happiness. These dementors could come in the form of bad experiences, past hurts and disappointments, the need to live up to high expectations, or even the loss of a loved one. All of us have our dementors, and they do come into our lives to haunt us from time to time. And just like the dementors in the wizarding world, our dementors have the ability to make us feel unhappy.

While it’s inevitable that these dementors come to visit us every so often, the question we need to ask ourselves is, what is our shield? What do we do in this world of reality to protect ourselves from the effects of our dementors? Personally, being a proud Potterhead myself, I’d like to think that our defences should be similar to that of the Patronus charm in the wizarding world. We need to focus on the things that make us happy, the things that bring us joy, the things that make us feel that we are loved. And just like in the wizarding world, these things (in other words, our defences) need to be strong enough in order to combat our dementors. A simple memory such as the time we received our driver’s license would not be enough. It has to be much stronger than that.

I suppose that the more important question would be, what defence would be so strong that there is no way that our dementors can penetrate them? Just like in the wizarding world, we cannot afford for our dementors to get the better of us, if we don’t want to lose our souls. And while the answer to this could vary for all of us, I’d like to believe that all of them point to one thing in common, which is the love that our God has for each of us, whether we can feel it or not. For those of us who have had a tangible experience of his love, we know that no matter how much love we have for a particular person, or even for God, it can never outdo the love that he has for us. For those of us who have yet to experience God’s love in a tangible way, the faith that has been passed on to us tells us that one can have no greater love than to give his life for others, which is exactly what our God did.

Dementors could be among us right now. And while it can’t be helped, we need to ask ourselves the most important question. Are we focusing on the things that can help us to combat ourselves against the dementors in our lives, or are we allowing the dementors to suck out the happiness from our souls?

Let us focus on the things that truly matter. Let us focus on the one thing that we know is sure to bring us true happiness, our relationships with God. May no dementor steal this from us. In the words of St. Cecilia, “Arise, solders of Christ, throw away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.”

- This is a modified reflection done by me in 2018 for my community's blog. However, I thought it'd be apt for a first post. A good reminder that when things seem to get difficult, we are called to focus a little harder on the love that he has for us, and the fact that he is walking this journey with us.